SURROUNDED by the dead, dying and bereaved in the middle of Africa’s deadly Ebola crisis, Malcolm Hugo can’t help but wonder some days, “What the hell am I doing here?”

The psychologist has swapped the western suburbs of Adelaide where he grew up for West Africa and the country of Sierra Leone that is the epicentre of the killer disease that has no cure.

He says he is “no hero” and is even being “a little bit selfish” leaving behind his family in Australia to help those in a desperate situation.

“I’m only really here because of the consideration of my wife,” the 64-year-old says, a generator whirring in the background.

“I got the call to help out about eight weeks ago and knew I had to come and Jenny fully supported that.”

French-based international organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) asked him to become involved knowing he had previously worked for them in Uganda during another Ebola outbreak in 2007.

That crisis was over within three months but he expects this to last longer and he has no time limit on a return to South Australia.

This week the World Health Organisation estimated the world’s worst outbreak of Ebola could last over nine months and see over 20,000 people infected.

The crisis coordination centre is around 12 hours’ drive from the Sierra Leone capital, Freetown, on the outskirts of the village of Kailahun.

Kailahun

“There are currently 60 patients here and the numbers are rising again after being as high as 80 a few weeks ago and then dropping to around 40,” Mr Hugo, who was a trained nurse before qualifying as a clinical psychologist, says.

“Up to 80 per cent of cases prove fatal and 20 per cent of those are children.”

Mr Hugo, whose brother Graeme Hugo is a renowned Professor at the University of Adelaide, is the only psychologist among a team of international workers, including from the Red Cross and WHO, combating the outbreak.

His role is to counsel devastated victims and their families about what future they will face.

“The disease is having a catastrophic impact on communities where entire families have been wiped out or children have been left as orphans,” he says.

“I talk to those who are traumatised by the confirmation they have Ebola and I also have a role with aid workers as this is very challenging for them too.

“Survival is the emphasis here but I also need to deal with everyday issues and make sure people have basic requirements.

“I organise body viewings and arrange for funerals — each body is sprayed and put inside double body bags and they must be burned within 24 hours.”

Lack of education and knowledge is as difficult to fight as the disease and survivors are often shunned by their own villages that fail to understand you cannot be infected with Ebola a second time.

Ebola is a viral disease that creates a haemorrhagic fever where affected people begin to bleed both within and without the body.

The virus may be acquired upon contact with blood or bodily fluids.

Mr Hugo doesn’t worry unduly about his own health and safety but observes strict safety precautions including washing his hands with chlorine up to 100 times a day.

“You don’t touch anyone without gloves on and you make sure you never use anything anyone else has touched,” he says.

Nurses gather outside the Faculty of Nursing, College of Medicine and Allied Health Services in Freetown, Sierra Leone.Source:AP

A woman washes her hands in chlorinated water at the Connaught Hospital, which has suffered the loss of medical workers from the Ebola virus, in Freetown, Sierra Leone.Source:AP

“I even have my own pen that never leaves me.”

Mr Hugo retired from his role as a clinical psychologist with SA Health a few years ago specifically to focus on his aid work.

For the past decade he has undertaken at least one international crisis assignment each year including for six months in Iraq last year.

He has been to disaster areas in Haiti, South Sudan, Ethiopia, in Aceh, Indonesia after the tsunami in 2004, in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan last year and on the Palestinian West Bank for 12 months where he was joined for a time by his wife.

“That was wonderful to have the chance to be together and to see his work in Palestine (East Jerusalem) for six months,” Jenny Hugo, who works for the City of Salisbury council, says.

“I think Malcolm is so good at what he does because he has the personality that can cope with all the stresses.

A healthcare worker near an Ebola isolation unit wears protective gear against the virus at Kenema Government Hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone.Source:AP

“He doesn’t get too emotionally attached so that it affects his life back here.”

Her husband says his best coping mechanism is staying focused on his work each day and trying not to think of his life on the other side of the world where his wife, four children and three grandchildren are waiting to see him.

“When I do think of home I know how lucky I am compared to so many of the people I’m with now,” he adds.

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